The Illustrated Man

‘That’s because I wanted you to learn to paint all by yourself, son.’

‘I don’t want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is there to do?’

‘All right, go play in Africa.’

‘Will you shut off the house sometime soon?’

‘We’re considering it.’

‘I don’t think you’d better consider it any more, Father.’

‘I won’t have any threats from my son!’

‘Very well.’ And Peter strolled off to the nursery.

‘Am I on time?’ said David McClean.

‘Breakfast?’ asked George Hadley.

‘Thanks, had some. What’s the trouble?’

‘David, you’re a psychologist.’

‘I should hope so.’

‘Well, then, have a look at our nursery. You saw it a year ago when you dropped by; did you notice anything peculiar about it then?’

‘Can’t say I did; the usual violences, a tendency toward a slight paranoia here or there, usual in children because they feel persecuted by parents constantly, but, oh, really nothing.’

They walked down the hall. ‘I locked the nursery up,’ explained the father, ‘and the children broke back into it during the night. I let them stay so they could form the patterns for you to see.’

There was a terrible screaming from the nursery.

‘There it is,’ said George Hadley. ‘See what you make of it.’

They walked in on the children without rapping.

The screams had faded. The lions were feeding.

‘Run outside a moment, children,’ said George Hadley. ‘No, don’t change the mental combination. Leave the walls as they are. Get!’

With the children gone, the two men stood studying the lions clustered at a distance, eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught.

‘I wish I knew what it was,’ said George Hadley. ‘Sometimes I can almost see. Do you think if I brought high-powered binoculars here and –’

David McClean laughed dryly. ‘Hardly.’ He turned to study all four walls. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘A little over a month.’

‘It certainly doesn’t feel good.’

‘I want facts, not feelings.’

‘My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only hears about feelings; vague things. This doesn’t feel good, I tell you. Trust my hunches and my instincts, I have a nose for something bad. This is very bad. My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment.’

‘Is it that bad?’

‘I’m afraid so. One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child’s mind, study at our leisure, and help the child. In this case, however, the room has become a channel toward – destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them.’

‘Didn’t you sense this before?’

‘I sensed only that you had spoiled your children more than most. And now you’re letting them down in some way. What way?’

‘I wouldn’t let them go to New York.’

‘What else?’

‘I’ve taken a few machines from the house and threatened them, a month ago, with closing up the nursery unless they did their homework. I did close it for a few days to show I meant business.’

‘Ah, ha!’

‘Does that mean anything?’

‘Everything. Where before they had a Santa Claus now they have a Scrooge. Children prefer Santas. You’ve let this room and this house replace you and your wife in your children’s affections. This room is their mother and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents. And now you come along and want to shut if off. No wonder there’s hatred here. You can feel it coming out of the sky. Feel that sun. George, you’ll have to change your life. Like too many others, you’ve built it around creature comforts. Why, you’d starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn’t know how to tap an egg. Nevertheless, turn everything off. Start new. It’ll take time. But we’ll make good children out of bad in a year, wait and see.’

‘But won’t the shock be too much for the children, shutting the room up abruptly, for good?’

‘I don’t want them going any deeper into this, that’s all.’

The lions were finished with their red feast.

The lions were standing on the edge of the clearing watching the two men.

‘Now I’m feeling persecuted,’ said McClean. ‘Let’s get out of here. I never have cared for these damned rooms. Make me nervous.’

‘The lions look real, don’t they?’ said George Hadley. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way –’

‘What?’

‘– that they could become real?’

‘Not that I know.’

‘Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?’

‘No.’

They went to the door.